Dr. A. Surya Prakash
Pardon this columnist for beginning the article on a personal note, but one among the many painful 
memories that he carries of the dreaded Emergency, which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed on the country 40 years ago, was to have the Inspector-General of Police, Karnataka, as his editorial boss! The latter had been appointed as the Chief Censor in the State, and the daily drill was to send him the news reports (this columnist was then a correspondent of The Indian Express in Bangalore) for clearance.
The Chief Censor had a battery of Deputy Superintendents of Police and Assistant Commissioners of Police, Inspectors and Information Department officials to vet all editorial matter, meant for publication in the following day’s editions of all newspapers. This was the routine for 19 months — from June 26, 1975, to late January 1977. We had strict instructions that not a word should go to print without the clearance of the IGP and his men.
As a result, we had a van that would shuttle between our office and that of the Chief Censor through the day carrying typed copies of editorials, the opinion page pieces and news reports. The Censor would wade through this material, delete anything that even remotely showed the Indira Gandhi Government in poor light, and put his stamp and seal on it. Only copies cleared by him could be published. The articles and news reports would come back often in a mutilated form, but there was no way one could violate the orders of the Censors, because arrest under the dreaded Maintenance of Internal Security Act hung like the Sword of Damocles on our heads.
It will be difficult for young readers, who have grown up in a vibrant and often rumbustious democratic environment, to even visualise a situation when media content had to pass through a sieve called the Inspector General of Police! Imagine policemen in the editorial departments of newspapers and television news channels! This is just one of the hundreds of examples that one can offer of the tyrannical environment that prevailed during the Emergency, when a democratically-elected Government destroyed the Constitution and turned itself into a fascist regime.
Indira Gandhi’s decision to become a dictator had its origins in an election petition filed against her by Raj Narain, accusing her of corrupt practices in the Rae Bareli constituency during the 1971 Lok Sabha poll. Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of Allahabad High Court held the Prime Minister guilty of corrupt practices, declared her election to Parliament void, and barred her from contesting elections for six years.
Indira Gandhi’s appeal against the judgement was heard by Justice VR Krishna Iyer. While everyone awaited Justice Iyer’s decision, Indira gandhi used the interregnum to rig up support through rented crowds outside her 1 Safdarjung Road residence. Justice Iyer passed an order on the appeal on June 24 and granted her a “conditional stay”, which allowed the Prime Minister to continue in office but barred her from participating in debates or voting in Parliament. Justice Iyer referred the matter to a larger Bench of the Court.
It was now clear to everyone, except Indira Gandhi and her supporters, that the position of the Prime Minister had become untenable. It made no sense for a Prime Minister to continue in office when she could neither speak nor vote in Parliament. The only honourable way out was to stay away from office until the Supreme Court disposed her appeal, but Indira Gandhi was unwilling to let go of power. Her resolve to stay put in office was reinforced by her son Sanjay Gandhi and their army of sycophants who hovered them.
The leaders of parties opposed to the Congress had been demanding Indira Gandhi’s resignation ever since her indictment at the hands of Justice Sinha on June 12. Justice Iyer’s “conditional stay” only reinforced this view, and Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai and other leaders addressed a mammoth rally on June 25 at the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi, in which they demanded her ouster.
However, Indira Gandhi and her kitchen Cabinet had other plans. Siddhartha Shankar Ray came up with the most ‘brilliant’ idea to wreck the Constitution. He advised Indira Gandhi to declare an Internal Emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution, which enabled such action whenever there was “internal disturbance”. The coterie around her argued that the Opposition agitation was preventing a duly elected Government from carrying out its duties.
She agreed, declared that the country needed “shock treatment” and approached President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to issue the proclamation. President Ahmed, known as a ‘rubber stamp’, instantly obliged, even though the Prime Minister had not consulted her Cabinet. Indira Gandhi summoned her Cabinet at 6am the following day and ‘informed’ it of her decision. By then, there was such fear among her Ministers that not one of them had any questions or doubts about anything that had happened the previous night.
It did not take much time for Indians to realise that democracy had been snuffed out, because soon thereafter, the Congress Government arrested political leaders, activists and journalists under the Misa. The operation was swift because of sufficient preparatory work at the Prime Minister’s residence. Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Madhu Dandavate, Ramakrishna Hegde, Arun Jaitley and hundreds of other political figures were packed off to jails.
A series of laws were promulgated and Constitution Amendments 39 to 42 were rammed through Parliament to destroy the last vestiges of democracy, strangle the judiciary and the media, and make Indira Gandhi the supreme leader who would be above the law. The core values in a democratic Constitution, like equality before the law and the right to life and liberty, were taken away. Congress leaders like CM Stephen intimidated the higher judiciary; VC Shukla threatened journalists and drew up a list of ‘hostile’ scribes who needed to be taught a lesson. Thousands of political activists, from the RSS to the socialists and the cadres of the CPI(M) were tortured in jails. Many, like Kerala engineering college student Rajan, were murdered by police.
India’s fascist nightmare ended when the people trounced the Congress in the March 1977 Lok Sabha poll. Indira Gandhi had called the election on the basis of Intelligence Bureau reports that the people still loved her.
Forty years have gone by. Should we not put a closure to these memories? The answer is a firm “no”, because there is no remorse among those who behaved so wickedly during the Emergency. Also, there has been no prayaschit. That is why one should never forget the Emergency and never forgive those who brought India face to face with fascism. Who knows when they will strike again!
(Author is the Chairman of Prasar Bharati. Courtesy; Dailypioneer.com)